Chick-Fil-A (Maybe) Faking Facebook Support For Muppet Lie

The fried chicken fast food chain, Chick-Fil-A has been getting a lot of bad press after announcing their negative position on LGBT rights in the States and their troubles seem to be growing, by their own hand.

In case you’ve missed it, the president of the chicken chain announced that the company is against gay marriage and supports only what they call “the biblical definition of the family unit.”

Since that announcement last week, the chain has seen supporters defending the company’s freedom of speech to “defend traditional marriage” and opponents defending their freedom of speech to boycott the brand for denying basic civil rights for all.

The debate has taken an interesting turn with some very poor PR from the restaurant brand.

Earlier this week the Jim Henson Company pulled all Muppet toys from Chick-Fil-A in an official response to the chain’s anti-gay stance.

And, now, it seems Chick-Fil-A is pretending the toys were dangerous and the fast-food chain chose to recall the Muppet products to protect the safety of their customers.

Signs have been placed in the restaurants stating:

“We apologize for any inconvenience but as of 7/19/2012 Chick-fil-A has voluntarily recalled all of the Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Puppet Kids Meal Toys due to a possible safety issue. Please be advised that there have not been any cases in which a child has actually been injured, however there have been some reports of children getting their fingers stuck in the holes of the puppets.”

Chick-Fil-A spokeswoman Tiffany Greenway told The Huffington Post that the company had decided to recall the Muppets toys nationwide, as of July 19, “for the protection of our customers.” She said it was a decision completely separate from the Jim Henson Company’s Facebook announcement.

Ummmm. Okay. Not a single report of injuries but this was done for the “protection of customers.” It’s a wonder Ms. Greenway’s pants haven’t caught fire yet with that one.

Honestly, this is just poor PR because all it does it make the brand seem spiteful at best and liars at worst.

But, it doesn’t stop there, it seems Chick-Fil-A may have been propagating that lie with fake Facebook accounts pretending to be Chick-fil-a sympathists.

According to Gizmodo: Yep, Chick-fil-A is still stuck in its own reality and is doubling down on its lie. Instead of owning up to the fact that The Jim Henson Company stopped doing business with them because they’re overrun with bigots, the chicken sandwich company appears to have made fake Facebook accounts to defend its honor on the social network. How do we know the accounts are fake? Just check out this back and forth on Chick-fil-A’s Facebook page between real, breathing people and “Abby Farle”, a Facebook account that was made 8 hours ago by a chicken PR flack with a stock image of a teenage girl as her profile picture:

Now, far be it from me to defend Chick-Fil-A here. Clearly they are lying about the Muppet toy removal, but I do think it should be stated that although it’s obvious this “Abby Farle” is fake, we do not know with absolute certainty that the chicken chain or their PR peeps are behind the fake posts.

But, whoever is behind it certainly has no clue about social media or how to manage a PR situation because this is just fanning the flames and giving opponents more fodder to showcase Chick-Fil-A’s obstinate refusal to admit the truth of the toy removal.

Jennifer Jones-Mitchell

A global leader in social media marketing, Jennifer Jones-Mitchell has been at the center of traditional and digital PR since the mid 90s and has helped launch some of the world's most loved brands. She has been blogging about PR and social media marketing since 2007. Learn more at: www.jenniferjonesmitchell.com